The Psychopath's Story

Gerald Daniel Walker mugshot. c.1973

In January 2018, a man convicted of murder, a crime committed in 1973, was denied parole; he was 86 years old. That in of itself is not unusual, however the nature of the relationship that developed between him and one of his victims engendered a book and movie during the 1980s. The story also details how a deeply disturbed and dangerous individual can masquerade and manipulate members of society that have no idea they are staring evil in the face.

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Bill and Hope at her mother's ranch c.1970s

On February 27, 1973 deputies with the Tulare County Sheriff's Office received a call about a crime that turned out to be the murder of William Ashlock, an executive from Los Angeles. Gerald Walker would eventually be tried and convicted for the crime. The Salinas Valley State Prison denied his last request for parole until 2023. This was not his first attempt to gain some semblance of freedom, but in this instance those with the power to keep him where he's at recognize what a dangerous individual he is despite his advanced age. In truth Walker will spend the rest of his life behind bars since if he's paroled for the murder charge he still has a fifty-year sentence in federal prison pending. 

This is the strange story that started that day in February 1973 in a ranch house at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas..

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At 10 minutes before noon on Friday, Feb. 23, 1973, a handsome, well dressed man carrying a carved pipe stepped into the reception room at Dailey & Associates, an advertising agency on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. He said he was a reporter for The Los Angeles Times. He said he had a lunch date with Bill Ashlock, an executive with the firm, to interview him for an article on the city's 10 most eligible bachelors. He said his name was Taylor Wright.

The lunch lasted nearly four hours, which made Bill late getting to Hope Masters' house. He was living, most of the time, with Hope in Beverly Hills, though he still kept his bachelor apartment downtown. Bill and Hope, who was a member of a socially prominent family, were planning to spend the weekend together at her mother's ranch on 500 mountainous acres in the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas.

The delay irritated Hope, and the news that the reporter would be driving up the next day, to take pictures for his piece, did not improve her mood. But by the time she and Bill were turning up the winding road to the ranch, she had relaxed, as she always did in this secluded place, with only the main house and the caretaker's cottage, a world away from the clamor and the contradictions of her life in Beverly Hills.

Like Bill Ashlock, Hope Masters was in the process of her second divorce, and her broken marriages exemplified some of those contradictions. She had eloped at age 16 with the boy next door, and had two children before she was 20. She'd divorced her husband because she considered him a boring stay-at-home, and married a dashing young public-relations man, Tom Masters. They had a child, then she and Tom had separated because she considered him too much of a playboy. Hope and her children lived in one of the most expensive residential areas in the United States, while her income of $435 a month -some from each husband, some from her mother -entitled her to food stamps.

At 31, Hope, was just over five feet and weighed 90 pounds; she had smoky green eyes in a small-boned, oval face, champagne-colored hair streaming past her shoulders, and she looked more like a sultry teen-ager than the mother of three children. Bill was 40, and looked 25. He was passionate about fitness, usually lunching on yogurt and jogging three miles a day.

Hope recalls the moment she was introduced by Bill: ''Hopie, this is Taylor Wright.'' ''Hi, Taylor. Where did you get that terrific tan?'' ''I've been skiing.'' Bill sat on the sofa, with Taylor in the rocking chair opposite. Hope set out wine and cheese, and she and Taylor talked, with Bill mostly listening. Hope was a compulsive talker; she says she talked so much to Taylor - about her life and problems, her mother and her stepfather, a corporation lawyer, who Hope said was as stiff and unbending as the American eagle - that later she couldn't remember everything she'd said. Taylor said he was from the Middle West but that he now lived in Paris and hadn't been in the United States for three years; this journalistic assignment was just something to do until he went abroad again.Bill made a fire and they sat up till nearly dawn, drinking wine and talking. They talked of their past relationships and of their future.

What happened in the hours, in the days and weeks, that lay ahead is one of the strangest and most perplexing stories in the annals of American crime. It is a story whose principal actors - Hope Masters and the man who called himself Taylor Wright - represented vastly different levels of society. One was a complex and vulnerable member of a rich, prominent family; the other, as it turned out, was at once a bright, persuasive charmer and an unpredictable menacing force. The actions of each of them proved often to be totally implausible and difficult to comprehend. Some of the questions the case raises will probably never be fully answered, matters that go beyond one murder case into fundamental questions of human behavior, its dynamics, imperatives and, especially, its ambiguity. But scores of interviews conducted over the past year with family members, detectives, defense attorneys, a county prosecutor, judges and prison officials do provide insight and perhaps answers to all that happened, why it happened and whether it reflected a system of fairness and justice.

The narrative of events of the weekend itself in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where the first part of the story takes place, is based essentially on the recollections expressed in interviews with Hope Masters and her testimony.

Taylor Wright arrived early Saturday afternoon. He was wearing dark slacks with a dark red turtleneck sweater, a white shirt over it and a leather jacket. He was tall, and very handsome, with dark wavy hair and a deep tan, a large carved pipe, one hand thrust into a pocket - the very image of male ease and elegance.

''How did you happen to pick Bill as a distinguished bachelor?'' ''Well, he drives a sports car, and he has a pilot's license, and'' - Taylor kept his eyes fixed on Hope -''he dates attractive women.''

When they all went down to the river late Saturday afternoon to take pictures, and Hope slipped on the damp grass, it was Taylor who caught her around the waist and held her hand as they climbed up the bank. ''You didn't tell me your birthday, but I know exactly what you are,'' Hope recalls teasing him. ''You're Leo, the lion.'' Watching him handle a horse, his sort of taking over and giving directions to the foreman, Hope was convinced. A Leo was charmingly arrogant, strong and capable.

But by dinnertime, Hope was feeling sick and dizzy from wine, and the pills she took for a bad back. Taylor said he'd be back on Sunday to take more pictures, but when he didn't move from the rocking chair, Hope excused herself. ''I have to go to bed now,'' she told him. ''I'll see you tomorrow.''

Bill followed her into the corner bedroom. ''I'm not going to bed for the night,'' she told him. ''Just for a nap. Wake me when he's gone.'' In fact, she says, she fell into a deep, oblivious sleep.

The next thing she knew, she was suddenly awakened. The room was black. She sensed a large shape looming over her, then something jabbing at her mouth - something cold, hard, heavy. She knew it was a gun. Hope Masters jerked her head aside and rolled across the bed, flinging herself out the door.

''Bill!'' she screamed. ''Bill, help me!'' In the glow of the dying fire, she saw Bill in his usual place on the sofa, his feet on the coffee table, his drink in his hand. His eyes were closed. As she ran toward him, she noticed the rocking chair was empty. Taylor is gone, she recalls thinking in panic, and a maniac has come in.

''Bill, Bill, help me!'' she kept screaming. When she grasped Bill by the shoulders, to wake him, his head wobbled and fell back. A voice came from the darkness behind the sofa. ''He can't help you. He's dead.'' Someone approached her from behind, spun her around and thrust her hands into the firelight. ''See all the blood,'' said the cold, flat voice. ''Look at all the blood. He's dead.'' Hope began to vomit. She ran for the bathroom, the man running after, tearing at her clothes. He pulled her into the bedroom where he raped her violently, speaking in a harsh voice she did not recognize.

''I don't need a gun to kill you,'' he rasped. ''I could break your neck with one hand.'' Hope heard the sound of ripping tape, then her feet were pulled up and tied to her hands, behind her back. ''I have to kill you,'' he growled. ''I can't leave you alive. You could identify me.''

''Don't scream,'' he warned. ''If you scream for the foreman, I will kill you both.'' Then he covered her with blankets, leaned down and rubbed his face against her cheek. ''I love you,'' he said. She heard the door close.

Detective Robert Swalwell of the Illinois State Police had three major career advantages. He had an understanding wife, a sense of humor and he looked like Richard Boone - tall, craggy, with clear blue eyes that could turn ice cold or crinkle into a marvelous smile. That weekend Hope and Bill drove to the ranch, Bob Swalwell had little to smile about. He was tracking a man he considered truly evil, the most amoral human being, he thought, he had ever known.

Three weeks earlier, that man - G. Daniel Walker - had escaped from prison custody. Swalwell took the search for Walker as a personal crusade, because Walker had been serving a long sentence for shooting a cop who was Swalwell's best buddy. From talking with dozens of people and sifting through the 30 cardboard cartons Walker had left behind at the Illinois State Prison, Swalwell felt he knew the man thoroughly, which did not necessarily mean he understood him.

G. Daniel Walker was born in Toledo, Ohio, on Aug. 10, 1931, to a stable, middle-class couple. His father was an antiques dealer. The boy had gone to school and church regularly; Swalwell found a nun, Sister Mavis, who'd kept in touch with him. He served with the Army in Korea. When he was 22, he was arrested for armed robbery, and in the 20 years since, he'd been arrested several times more, sentenced to various prisons and paroled. After his final release from Ohio State Penitentiary in 1966, he'd started an advertising agency - Ad-Biz Ink - which seemed to thrive; he owned a house on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin and was earning about $45,000 a year when he began committing quirky little crimes: stealing a helicopter, stealing a neighbor's te nt, which he pitched in his own backyard. When he was stopped on a Chicago highway by Swalwell's friend, who was making a routine license-plate check, Walker chatted pleasantly with the officer, handed him his business card, then shot him in the head.

None of the facts seemed to answer the looming question: Why? Swalwell came to the staggering conclusion that Walker robbed people and sometimes shot people for the fun of it. One of Walker's acquaintances said Walker had told him he'd committed robberies in Florida ''for a lark.'' A camera-shop owner told Swalwell that when Walker robbed him, he'd recited poetry to him. Everyone agreed that the man was a born talker, personable and clever, totally charming, which seemed borne out by the record: While serving time in Ohio, Walker had courted and wedded the warden's private secretary. They had one child. Later they were divorced, and Walker maintained a long list of female friends, including a reform-minded housewife and a Legal Aid lawyer who was representing him in a lawsuit against prison officials.

Swalwell considered himself a reasonably progressive cop and he agreed that prisons could stand reforming. But he felt that Walker was using the prison people, as he'd used people all his life, especially women. Walker had not escaped directly from the prison, but from a Chicago hospital where he'd got himself admitted through a ruse and had apparently had a good time, offering vodka and orange juice to the nurses. On Jan. 31, 1973, Walker left his room to go down to another floor to take a shower. He never came back. When his hospital roommate was discharged a few days later, he found his house had been lived in and a lot of things were missing, including credit cards. Within 24 hours, the cards were being used around town at gourmet food shops, clothing and gift shops. Gradually, other stolen credit cards showed Walker heading west. A jewelry salesman identified Walker from a mug shot as the man who had beaten him in Ann Arbor, Mich., and taken his American Express card, which had been used to rent a car in Omaha on Valentine's Day. The car was found abandoned in Denver, near the airport.

The salesman's name was Taylor Wright.

Hope remembers lying rigid in the blackness of the ranch house, feeling that she must be hallucinating, that what was happening could not be happening. Then someone was in the bedroom again, sounding agitated but not violent, not like the wild man who had been there before.

''Is Bill really dead?'' Hope cried. ''Oh, please tell me Bill isn't dead.'' The voice was calm. ''I have seen him and he is dead.'' Hope began to moan. ''Oh, why, oh, why, why Bill?'' ''Because he was with you. Because someone wants you dead.'' Hope tried to make sense of what he was saying: that he had been given a contract to kill her, a contract arranged by her second husband, who had taken out a large insurance policy on her. She was to be killed in ''a Sharon Tate-type massacre'' along with her two older children, but not the youngest, Tom Masters' child.

''The children!'' Hope screamed. ''I have to get home to the children!'' ''You have to understand,'' he said in a reasoning tone. ''In a contract killing, there is no such thing as a witness left alive. You could identify me.''

''I would never identify you!'' Hope cried. He seemed to consider. ''I don't know if I can trust you.'' ''You can trust me! You can trust me! I would never identify you.'' Her untied her and took flashbulb pictures. ''If you ever identify me,'' he warned, ''the Organization will have your picture, and you and your children will be killed.''

He left the room, came back, and at that point, Hope says, she realized from his voice and his silhouette in the doorway that the man was Taylor Wright. Hope decided she had to keep talking, to be calm, maybe even funny.

''Well, can the condemned person have a last cigarette?'' she asked. ''No,'' Taylor said. ''It's bad for you.'' ''You're worried about my health?'' she asked in amazement. Taylor sounded surprised. ''Gee, I guess I am.'' As Hope talked non stop - about her philosophy of life and death, her life, her children, anything she could think of - Taylor talked, too. ''If you ever want to know more about me , read 'The Day of the Jackal,' '' he said. ''I'm the Jackal.'' He seemed to wave r about killing her. ''I have a code of ethics,'' he announced, '' and I don't believe in killing a mother with young children, especially when they have very little money. I will have to think about this.'' He set the gun down with a clank, lay down on top of her, put his head on her shoulder and immediately went to sleep. Hope says she blacked out in a state that seemed to combine momentary relief and shock.

It was daylight when she awoke and stirred. He awakened at once and tried to kiss her. ''I haven't brushed my teeth,'' Hope murmured. He laughed and got up.

By day, the scene seemed as unreal as it had by night, a bizarre collage of conversation and threats. Taylor warned again that if she identified him, she and her children would be killed. He talked of killing Tom Masters, so Hope could collect his Social Security. He talked of burning down the ranch house, and of buying Hope a white lace dress Bill had planned to buy for her. He wanted to cook breakfast for her. When Hope refused to go through the living room because of Bill, he dragged Bill's body into the back bedroom.
Sometimes cajoling and teasing, sometimes threatening, Taylor dressed her and took her up the mountainside to take pictures. Then he put her in the front seat of his new white Lincoln Continental and drove her to her house in Beverly Hills, telling her that she and her children were still in terrible danger from the people involved in the contract and that the police must not be called until he'd had time to ''fix it.'' Meantime, he would stay with them and protect them.

Hope says she remained desperately afraid but he only seemed angry and menacing when she showed her fear or said she was in pain. She tried to stay cheerful. When he said he had a backache, she gave him a backrub. He talked again about the white dress, and it dawned on Hope that Taylor wanted to take Bill's place in her life. ''I'll make it up to you,'' he assured her. He wanted her happy and loving. He wanted her to act like a wife. So, for two days, she did.

The police in Illinois, trying to trace the steps of the escaped prisoner Daniel Walker, were by now being taunted in letters back from the West to his lawyer. Walker wrote that he was playing a ''cat-and-mouse game'' - and winning. ''Skied Loveland Basin this A.M.,'' one letter said, ''and then on over to Vail and the big monster Lion's Head this afternoon ... but ruined a new pair of $59.95 ski pants. Tell the boys at Illinois State Police to look for a fugitive with a limp. ...'' In another letter he not only named the dining room at a hotel where he was staying - the Oak Room - but itemized his dinner: ''a series of martinis, oysters on the half shell, turtle soup and sherry, steak beaten with pepper on both sides and cooked to medium rare with mushrooms, four Irish coffees. ...''

In his 14 years on the force, Bob Swalwell had acquired a knowledge of human behavior the hard way, on a gritty, day-to-day basis. He knew people. He knew Walker. But he did not know quite what to make of the ending of one long letter in which Walker - after describing the comforts of one of his hideouts: the TV, food, liquor, women, pipe tobacco, the ministrations of a tailor and a barber - struck an abruptly contemplative note. ''One might suspect I am happy. I am not. This carries a price tag, one you never get to see until it is too late.''

Nor did Swalwell know, yet, that half a continent away, Walker had found a woman whose life would confront his with urgent insistence, a woman whose longstanding insecurities and susceptibilities would conform to his situation as inevitably as a chosen key fits a yawning lock.

''I would like to sit here by the fire with you forever,'' Hope recollects his saying in a gentle, dreamy voice. ''I would be your protector and take care of you and the children forever. Put the kids to bed and sit by the fire with you.'' He set his wine glass on the coffee table and walked around to the back of the sofa, leaning against it, facing her.

''Can you ever forgive me?'' he asked softly. ''Yes, I forgive you,'' Hope said. ''I do forgive you.'' He smiled. He seemed very happy, as he had seemed since they got back from the ranch on Sunday - playing with the children, cooking their meals and, over Hope's protests, driving them to school. ''Things have to appear normal,'' he explained. He washed dishes, whistling as he worked; he tucked the children into bed and sipped wine in the living room, listening to music, talking wistfully about ''getting out of the killing business.''

''I can stop doing this, you know,'' he told Hope. ''I can go out tomorrow and get a job as an attorney and never harm another person. If I do that - if I stay out of trouble for five years - will you marry me?''

Hope looked at him. ''Well, I think it would be fine if you became a lawyer,'' she said finally, ''but I honestly don't know how I'd feel in five years. I just don't know.''

By Tuesday afternoon, Hope convinced Taylor that they had to do something. ''Somebody is going to find Bill's body ,'' she told him, shakily. ''My God, it's been three days.'' Reluctantly, he agreed that they could go down the hill to her mother's house nearby. But he warned her again that, if she veered from the planned story, everyone would be killed.

When they arrived, Hope's mother - also named Hope, nicknamed Honey - was appalled at her daughter's disheveled, hollow-eyed look. Hope kept thinking of the gun in Taylor's waistband under his leather jacket as he sat on the lemon-velvet sofa in her mother's elegant living room, helping her tell the story: that Bill had been killed by an intruder, that Taylor had arrived on Sunday, had moved Bill's body and had rescued Hope.

Honey was impressed by Taylor - obviously intelligent, well educated, well born, she assessed - but she could scarcely comprehend what she heard. ''After you released Hopie and left the ranch, why didn't you drive straight to the police station?'' she asked him.

''Because your daughter told me what had happened, and she was terrified for the safety of her children. She said the killer had told her that if she notified the police before he said she could, he would kill her and her children and'' - he looked intently at Honey - ''you and your husband, too.

''You are all still in terrible danger. I am sure there is someone on the roof of the house across the street now with a telescopic rifle. There may be a bomb under your house.''
Honey tried to steady her voice. ''When you got back to Los Angeles and got the children safely together, why didn't you go to the police then?''

''Because I am not an American national. I have removed a material witness from the scene of a crime and I have disturbed the evidence of a crime. This could cause me trouble with my passport ... . This killer has been very clever - he has arranged to have one child away from Hope at all times so she couldn't contact the police.''

When Hope's stepfather got home from his office and heard the story, he reached for the phone. ''I'm 63 years old and I've never broken the law in my life,'' he declared. ''I'm calling the police.''

Hope threw herself against the phone. ''You're not just risking your own life!'' she screamed. ''You're condemning my children, and they haven't even had a chance to live!''
As Hope and her stepfather argued, Honey wept, and Taylor stood up. ''I'll call the police, but not from here,'' he said. ''This phone is tapped. I'll use a phone at the Beverly Hills Hotel.'' He smiled at Hope, and, quickly, he was gone.

Over the years, various psychiatrists at various prisons had attempted to analyze Daniel Walker. After the facts - the background, the rap sheet -came whatever details could be gleaned: Drinks of choice: martinis, or gin and Fresca. Hobbies: sailboating, iceboating, collecting antiques. Religion: ''bad-weather Catholic,'' which Walker had explained to a psychiatrist meant that when the weather was too bad for sailing, he went to church.

One probation officer had been impressed by Walker's ''friendliness'' and his ability ''to relate easily to strangers,'' describing him as ''intelligent, very articulate and, under the circumstances, extremely cooperative.'' The officer had quoted Walker's stated goal in life, apparently verbatim, apparently deadpan: ''... to convince people that material things are not the most important in life, but acceptance.''

Six months later, another prison psychiatrist sounded a warier note, calling Walker ''manipulative'' and pointing out that ''a significant aspect of this man's personality is the ease with which his emotions are stimulated and the extent to which he acts out his feelings in an impulsive manner. Because of his drive, in addition to a manipulative ability, he has experienced occasional brilliant success in the business world; however, this performance has not been consistent over the years and it is doubtful whether this performance can be consistent unless there is a basic change in personality structure within the individual. There is an underlying element of rage and anger within the inmate which occasionally surfaces and results in impulsive and aggressive overt behavior. This individual is considered to be potentially very aggressive and perhaps homicidal.'' The psychiatrist had taken the words right out of Swalwell's mouth, though Swalwell's words were plainer: ''An evil man. A man who could shoot you, then sit down and have lunch beside your body.''

As soon as Taylor left, Hope quickly scrawled out her will and her stepfather brought guns he kept in the house out into the living room. Within the hour, two young Beverly Hills policemen arrived, and Hope poured out her story - about an unknown intruder, a murder contract and her rescue by a man named Taylor. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the police fr om nearby Porterville had found Bill's body, following a phone call from a man in Los Angeles who said he was Hope Master's father . The Porterville police called the Beverly Hills police. And Hope Masters was arrested on suspicion of homicide.

The victim was pronounced dead on the scene at 10:30 P.M. Tuesday, the precise time that a white Chevrolet Impala was being rented at the Avis desk at the Los Angeles airport by a man who presented a credit card and signed the slip William T. Ashlock.

After two days and two nights in county jail, Hope was released on $50,000 bail, pending a preliminary hearing. Even with Valium, even with sleeping pills, she lay awake at night in the guest room at her mother's house, her children clutching fearfully at her in the big bed. The days were filled with commotion and chaos - the children squabbling, the phone shrieking, Hope and her stepfather quarreling, Honey often stepping in, weeping. Disagreements lurched into discord, anxieties into anger. Honey had long considered Hope difficult and rebellious; Hope had long resented her mother's attempts to direct her life. Hope often cited her mother's personal allowance from her husband - $3,000 a month, not including car maintenance and lunches at the Los Angeles Country Club - in contrast to her own precarious finances. When the murder, and Hope's arrest, made banner headlines, the flowers and gifts that poured in were almost exclusively addressed to the parents. Hope was especially annoyed by one note: ''When our children are little, they tread upon our feet, and when they are grown, they tread upon our hearts.''

Beyond the pre-existing family tensions, which this catastrophe had raised to unbearable levels, Hope says she felt drained by her fear. She was afraid of so many things she could hardly sort them out in her head: an uncanceled contract, a bomb under the house, someone waiting, watching, somewhere, with a telescopic rifle. She kept hearing footsteps outside the bedroom window - sometimes pacing, sometimes scurrying. Maybe Gene Tinch, the private detective the family had engaged. Maybe a policeman. Maybe not.

When the first tape arrived, by messenger, Hope's stepfather called the attorneys he'd arranged for Hope - Tom Breslin and Ned Nelsen - and detective Tinch. Thus, though it was contrary to what he evidently had in mind, a sizable audience heard what the man still known to the family as Taylor Wright had to say:

''I do not want any member of your family listening in. I do not want any of your lawyers to listen in. ''I will stick by you to the bitter end and I will get you out of this mess. I will not leave the country. I will not leave the area until I know all the charges against you have been dropped.

''I have kept track of the kids. I know they're staying home from school. I'm not far away, dear. I'm going to stay close. I'll see you out of this one. Mr. Fix-it will get you through. ...
''And I found a stunning white dress, size 3. ...'' After the personal beginning, Taylor read an affidavit outlining the events at the ranch, which detailed his arrival on Sunday to find Bill dead and Hope bound in a way that she could not have accomplished herself. He declared himself ''willing to answer any and all questions ... however, this must be done outside the United States.'' Besides the affidavit, the businesslike portion of the tape contained the information that a man recently found dead in a motel room on the Sunset Strip was the killer originally hired for the Hope Masters job, but because this man had not carried it out, after being paid, he himself had been ''eliminated.''

''Hope, I'm not going to leave you in this trouble. You've committed no crime. You were not involved in anyone's death. I'm willing to tell anyone that you were under my control and custody the entire time we were together from when we left the ranch. I'm going to do everything in my power to get you out of trouble. ... Maybe we can get it straightened out. I'd love to come home to you ... . Give the kids a kiss.''

As Tom Breslin listened to the long tape, he felt a shiver. He had never heard anything so clearly evil: the caressing voice, dripping romantic nostalgia, brilliantly exploiting Hope's deepest needs, especially her need for a strong, caring man to solve her life for her - lover, father, protector, friend.

Tom and his partner, Ned Nelsen, and Gene Tinch, the detective, suspected immediately that this man who called himself Taylor Wright was not simply a knight in a white Lincoln who had rescued Hope. They did not believe that Hope had shot Bill, but neither did they really believe her story of a mysterious intruder and another mysterious hero. And when Hope had held to that version, for days after she was released on bail and back home, Gene had expressed puzzlement. ''She's away from him, she's free from him. Why continue to take the rap for him?''

The morning after the tape was played, Tom Breslin was busy at his desk when the F.B.I. called. Within the hour, everyone had assembled in Honey's living room. ''Yes,'' Honey said. ''Yes,'' her husband said. ''No question about it.'' Hope stared at the picture, a mug shot, of a long haired man with a glint in his eye. Another picture flashed through her mind : hand in his pocket, gesturing with his pipe. Thick wavy hair. Polished boots. Warming smile.

The F.B.I. man was talking, but Hope hesitated. She closed her eyes. She says she couldn't stop hearing bits of other conversations: ''I can't leave you alive.'' ''You could identify me.'' ''I would never identify you.'' ''I don't know if I can trust you.'' ''You can trust me.''

Hope opened her eyes. ''Yes,'' she said. That morning, March 6, Bob Swalwell was reading the letter Walker's lawyer had just received. ''I am enclosing a brief story from the front pages of the S.F. paper, which tells a bit of what is up in the fast-moving life of Run-Dan-Run! Next, I am enclosing a picture of Hopie (her name is Hope but is called Hopie) and I took the picture in Hopie's garden in L.A. ...''

Walker recounted his version of the events, concluding: ''The police arrived and Hopie and her children refused to answer any questions, and Hopie elected to go to jail to give me enough time to get away.

''Love you, darling. Wish me luck.''

A few hours later, when Swalwell heard from the F.B.I. that Hope Masters and her parents had identified Walker's picture, Swalwell grabbed a change of clothes, his weapon and the next plane west.

''You are the only means we have of catching this man,'' the F.B.I. had told Hope. ''It is important that you keep him on the phone when he calls. You must keep him around.''

When the phone rang soon afterward, Hope's hands shook as she reached to answer. ''How are you?'' Walker asked, and, without waiting for the reply, said: ''I know you're very bad. I will stick around and see you out of this mess.''

''Oh, please do,'' Hope said shakily. ''I'm so scared. I'm going right down the drain. It's looking real bad for me. They took me to Porterville, but they'd removed everything up there, like the fact that I'd thrown up. They're just not buying it. They think I'm some sort of sex freak.''

''That's a bummer,'' Walker said. ''And she doesn't even kiss until she brushes her teeth.'' He laughed. ''Well, I've got to get off now.''

''Will you call me later?'' Hope asked, trying to sound casual. ''Sure,'' Walker said. ''Take care of yourself. Give me a kiss. Love you.'' In his last of several calls, he asked the question Hope had been expecting and dreading. ''Have they shown you any pictures?'' ''They say they found drugs in the house, but we don't ... .'' ''Have they shown you any pictures?'' Hope tried again. ''Ballistically,'' she began, but Walker cut in sharply. ''Have they shown you any pictures?'' ''No,'' Hope said in a low voice. Walker sounded relieved. ''Then they don't realize you don't know who I am.'' ''I guess so,'' Hope murmured. She felt sick to her stomach. ''Listen, take care of yourself!'' she blurted. ''I don't want you to get killed on account of me. I don't want anybody to get killed on account of me anymore!''

''That's neither here nor there,'' Walker said briskly. ''I must enjoy what I'm doing. You know, you take for so many years, and all of a sudden it's your turn to give.''

Hope's notion that Walker's capture would clear her was quickly dispelled. When he was surrounded, disarmed and arrested at 10:25 A.M. on Sunday, March 11, after an all-night stakeout by Bob Swalwell and 16 more armed men at the Howard Johnson's motel in North Hollywood - where he'd registered as Taylor Wright - the ensuing headlines surpassed a copywriter's most excessive dreams. ''THE SOCIALITE AND THE CONVICT.''
Hope Masters and Daniel Walker were, indeed, both together, standing together at the preliminary hearing to determine whether probable cause existed for a trial. Even when a second tape in which Walker declared her innocence - not to mention his own - was leaked to the press, county investigators told a local paper they had ''no comment'' on ''which of the pair they believed fired a small-caliber gun into Ashlock's head.'' At the hearing, the prosecutor relied principally on what he contended was the complete implausibility of Hope's story and on the sworn testimony of Hope's Beverly Hills maid, who told of seeing her on the living room floor with Walker, giving him a massage. The hearing judge decreed: ''There has been more than sufficient evidence adduced that the crime of homicide has been committed ... that each of the defendants were present ... and court feels that the probative value to be given (to the evidence) should be done by the trier of fact in Superior Court.'' On April 18, Hope Masters and G. Daniel Walker were charged with murder in the first degree.

Even though she was still free on bail, she spent a dismal summer as legal motions went on prior to trial. But Walker seemed to be having a ball. When he was granted the right to act as his own co-counsel, along with a public defender, he was given two cells, one with a picnic table for a work space. The women trustees in their section of the county jail made him a quilt.

Hope's attorneys moved that charges against her be dismissed because of insufficient evidence. In Walker's case, the evidence seemed not insufficient: The list of items taken from his car the day he was arrested covered 11 pages and included lots of car keys and hotel-room keys, lots of other men's clothing, credit cards and papers, including Bill Ashlock's W-2 form; and a pair of surgical gloves. The car itself had been rented with Bill's BankAmericard.

But Walker - urbane, smiling, immaculately dressed, gesturing with his pipe - moved that all the evidence be suppressed, basing his argument on a concept colorfully called ''the fruit of the poisoned tree.'' Walker argued that his letter to his lawyer in Chicago, which the authorities had used to link him with the Ashlock killing, had been illegally intercepted, and that everything stemming from that illegality - his identification, his arrest, the seizure of incriminating evidence and his indictment - was therefore also illegal. Walker's 52-page motion was discussed with amazement by some observers -''How can the search of a hotel room be unlawful when the room is rented unlawfully, on a stolen credit card?'' - but even skeptics were dazzled by Walker's bravura performance, along with, apparently, the court, which granted the motion in its entirety. All the evidence was ordered suppressed.

And without any evidence, the case against Walker seemed to come down to one person. But she was a co-defendant. The solution to the legal question of how the state could get Hope to testify was not arrived at without considerable courtroom trauma and debate. Ultimately, it resulted in the state's willingness to trade dismissal of the charges against her for her testimony against him.

''But we can't just dismiss,'' the prosecutor said at one point. ''How about guilty to a lesser charge, like not calling the police?'' ''No thanks, dismissal,'' replied Hope's attorney. The Superior Court interjected: ''As I see it, the thing that will convict Hope Masters is your proof that she knew Mr. Walker before he came to the ranch. Do you have any evidence of that?''

''No, we don't,'' the prosecutor conceded.''Well, then, I don't think you'll get a conviction against her and I think you're better off getting her cooperation.'' Hope Masters's case was dismissed.

Ninety-eight witnesses were called in the case of The People of the State of California v. G. Daniel Walker, in a trial lasting nearly two months. Among them were Tom Masters, who denied ever knowing or meeting Walker or ever having anything to do with any kind of plot against Hope; the real Taylor Wright; Hope's 13-year old son, who wrung the hearts of the women on the jury; Walker himself, whose intricate story took two days to tell; and Hope Masters:

''Mrs. Masters, do you remember any of the conversation that night?'' ''I remember a lot of the conversation. Part of the time he would put on surgical gloves, and he told me he was wiping off fingerprints he had left during the day. He warned me that if I did anything, he would kill me.''

'This was the defendant, is that correct?'' ''This was Mr. Walker, yes.'' ''Now, Mrs. Masters, you have lied, so to speak, about a lot of facts of this case, isn't that true?'' ''I only lied about one thing: the identity of the person up at the ranch.'' ''That was Mr. Walker, is this correct?'' ''Yes.'' ''You are not absolutely certain, though, that Mr. Walker was the first one who attacked you?'' ''No.'' ''Mrs. Masters, the intruder, after he raped you, did he stay there in bed with you for any length of time?'' ''Kind of got in and out of bed several times.'' ''Did you sleep at all that night?'' ''For a little while.'' ''Did you see the intruder sleep that night?'' ''You mean the person that I am not sure who it was there?'' ''Yes.'' ''Well, I don't know. You see, it depends on who it was.'' On Jan. 11, 1974, G. Daniel Walker was convicted of murder in the first degree, and he was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. For it came down, finally, to the question of believability. It was a tangled question, involving Hope Masters' credibility and the ramifications of her own belief, at a certain time and place, despite the terror he had inflicted on her, in Daniel Walker. At i ts most practical level, the question was whether the jurors believed Walker.They did not. Neither did the trial judge, who told them, just before they retired, that in his opinion, Walker was guilty. The consensus was clear: Justice had been done.

''Five years,'' Hope recalls Walker's saying on the night they sat in her living room, listening to music, sipping wine. ''How do you think you will feel about me in five years?'' Not since 1973 had Hope been to the ranch, but now, after Honey threatened to sell it unless Hope showed some interest, she and her children drove up for a weekend - in July 1978. She swam in the river. She slept in the same corner bedroom. She felt peaceful and content. Back home, she locked herself in the bedroom and cried for four days. She cried for herself, for Bill, for Walker, from the depths of her fear and anger and grief and guilt, from a tangle of emotions she tried to explain: ''I know, I know, Walker hurt me a lot. But by hanging around and helping me, he risked going to jail forever. And he has gone to jail forever. He promised me, over and over, whenever he phoned, 'I won't leave you.' And he didn't.'' Hope and Walker had corresponded. When he wrote, ominously, that prisoners were now allowed to marry, his old question recurred in frightening focus: ''Will you marry me?'' Hope felt she had to see him to settle things. She visited him at San Quentin. She stayed overnight in Fresno and went back to see him a second time the next day. Then she went home.

Her daughter had clipped a maxim from a magazine that seemed appropriate: One of the most important signs of maturity is the realization and acceptance of the fact that no one will ever fully understand. Hope accepted the fact that no one ever would. ''Everyone thinks Walker let me live for one of two reasons,'' she said. ''Sex, or money. Either we were sexually mad for each other, or my parents paid him off ... . It never seems to occur to anybody that maybe Walker let me live because he thought I was a good person. A useful person. A valuable human being.''
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Three months after Hope's visit, Walker married a prison dietitian. His behavior is now said not to be a problem, though keeping up with his self-prepared legal briefs and petitions for freedom has been a bit of a chore for the California state-prison staff. Daniel Walker is eligible for a parole hearing next June. (1982).

Hope Masters

In 1991, FBI investigator, Robert Ressler interviewed Walker in prison. During the interview he talked about his crimes including many that he had not been charged with, and made a comparison between criminals and police as being similar. According to Ressler he demonstrated many of the thought processes attributed to a "diabolical mind", a theory that postulates that there are certain persons that are unable to differentiate between right and wrong.

After the interview, Walker's psychopathic mind became evident when he tried to get a shipment of poison sent to him in prison in order to murder a deputy district attorney that had prosecuted him. The plan was discovered and it added years to his sentence.

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​Source - NYT